Yesterday President Trump ordered an attack by American missiles on a Syrian airport in retaliation for a chemical weapons attack against civilians, apparently by the Syrian governments. At the Washington Post David Ignatius observes:
Trump has now taken a decisive step that Obama resisted, but he still faces a dilemma of how to bring political change to a Syria shattered by six years of civil war. The irony is that Trump faces the same bad military options for pressing the attack in western Syria beyond this initial strike that Obama did.
Via Time.com here are the president’s remarks:
My fellow Americans,
On Tuesday, Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad launched a horrible chemical weapons attack on innocent civilians. Using a deadly nerve agent, Assad choked out the lives of helpless men, women and children. It was a slow and brutal death for so many. Even beautiful babies were cruelly murdered in this very barbaric attack. No child of God should ever suffer such horror.
Tonight I ordered a targeted military strike on the airfield in Syria from where the chemical attack was launched. It is in this vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons. There can be no dispute that Syria used banned chemical weapons, violated its obligations under the Chemical Weapons Convention and ignored the urging of the U.N. Security Council.Years of previous attempts at changing Assad’s behavior have all failed and failed very dramatically. As a result, the refugee crisis continues to deepen and the region continues to destabilize, threatening the United States and its allies.
Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types. We ask for God’s wisdom as we face the challenge of our very troubled world. We pray for the lives of the wounded and for the souls of those who have passed and we hope that as long as America stands for justice, that peace and harmony will in the end prevail.
Good night and God bless America and the entire world. Thank you.
In my opinion and assuming that the information that the Syrian government was responsible for the chemical weapons attack were accurate, the attack was warranted but still rash. To be justified the attack either required UN Security Council sanction or the authorization of Congress.
I don’t think we should rule out the notion of the attack as a bargaining ploy. It would be consistent with Trump’s transactional approach. He has sent a message of something that should be obvious: he’s not Obama. The audience for the message included friends, foes, and rivals including Presidents Putin and Xi, the Iranians, and Kim Jong Un.
Trump definitely needs both congress and UNSC approval.
It might play well on TV today — but his supporters are as war weary as the rest of the country. In a few weeks there will be a lot of scrutiny especially if Syria, Russia or Iran retaliate. While there is still plurality / majority support to be in Syria to remove ISIS, there is no such consensus for removing Assad. By doing this, a lot more attention will be paid to Syria / Iraq, and any mishaps over there is going to hit Trump hard when his administration is struggling.
Is Congress going to put on its big boy pants and figure whom if anyone we should go to war with in Syria? Rand Paul already said Trump needs to get Congressional approval.
I presume that’s a rhetorical question. The obvious answer is “No”.
Senator Paul had some good questions everyone will soon start asking.
“Will we improve our national security? Are we threatened currently by Syria, and if we go to war is Assad likely to use less chemical weapons or more?”
You might be interested in this post at The Federalist. It poses a number of other good questions.
The fact this was posted on the Federalist shows how widespread skepticism about this is among Trump’s supporters.
“I now have responsibility” — that’s pretty foolish to say, even for Trump. I’m pretty sure that’s going to be played again and again if (when?) things turn sour.
My advice to Republican senators and congressmen. Support Senator Paul and get Congress a say on the matter — and then say no. You can always have another vote and say yes if circumstances change and action is fully supported by the country. But there’s no easy way to stop a war even if the country doesn’t support it; except by kicking you out.
Most of the Federalist questions rotated around mining details involving taking Assad down, as if that was virtually the next step following yesterday’s missile strike. In that context such questions were thoughtful and deserving of close consideration.
However, bombing one airfield into oblivion was approved, unanimously​, by national security officials having undeniable proof that this specific airfield was the initiation point of Assad’s seron attack. Consequently, IMO, in the aftermath of such an hineous event, pinpointing one target for justified destruction, created the appearance of this missile strike being more of a cause and effect tactic than one calling for open warfare. Virtually, the message was, if you randomly and viciously kill your own people with a banned “WMD,” expect a swift and deserved reaction by us and/or others. Of course such a military punishment could lead to a whole array of unintended consequences, in which case The Federalist questions would be applicable. Or, it could be a strong enough shot across the bow (similar to Reagan’s Libya strike) creating a slew of second thoughts in leaders, other than Assad, who would like nothing more than to bring the US to it’s knees, but who might now either entirely reconsider or take longer to actuate those thoughts.
” Assad’s seron attack.”
How do you know they dropped Sarin rather than dropping ordinary bombs that hit a supply of Sarin on the ground? Do you have a link to the results of an investigation the rest of us don’t know about? Why would this not just as likely work as well as Reagan’s putting troops in Lebanon, having a bunch get killed, and them having to run away? What is special about doing a bit of damage to that airfield? By report, some of the landing strips remain intact. Finally, unanimously? Says who? Anyone w/o a major political stake in this?
Steve